We pulled into the drive and hesitated, rolling down the window to ask one of the workers, “Is here okay?” He didn’t break stride, just gave us a thumbs up and went back to what he was doing.
A few minutes later, he approached to see what we needed. I wouldn’t call him warm or friendly, exactly. But he was direct, efficient, and sincere, which might actually be a higher form of customer service. No theater, no “How’s your day going?” He simply pointed us toward the office and went back to his work.
Crossing the threshold into that office felt like stepping through a portal. My eyes darted to the decades-old trophies lining the window, each coated in dust and cobwebs.
The rotary phone sat on the counter, still in use. The vending machine in the corner, an ancient RC Cola beast, long out of order. The walls were crowded with 1970’s race car photos, grease-streaked posters, and yellowed signs about refunds and handwritten “Employees Only” on cardboard.
We sat in the clean-enough waiting area chairs, the kind with blue fabric and chrome legs that screamed 1980’s municipal break room, and just absorbed it all. Every surface bore the marks of time and use: layers of grease handprints. A dead cactus slumped over in a an old Folger’s Instant Coffee can. Hubcaps from the ‘50s hung like relics. Autographed racing photos watched over it all.
At one point, a customer wandered in, asking if any of us worked there. Moments later, a kid, maybe 20, face streaked with grime, eating a white bread sandwich which was a stark contrast to his permanently black-stained hands, emerged from behind the “Authorized Personnel Only” door like an extra from a film.
After a short 10 minute wait, the man we first spoke with rolled our tire right into the office, dripping wet, to show us what he’d found: a slow leak and a ripple in the sidewall. He was honest: he could fix the leak and put it back on the car if we wanted, but he didn’t like the look of the ripple. “Could blow up on you,” he warned, matter-of-fact. Then he offered another tire he had on hand, a good price, ready to go. We agreed. Another short wait, maybe ten minutes, and the car was done.
For payment, another character appeared. A jolly woman in her sixties, wearing a tie-dyed shirt, her long silver braid swinging as she laughed her way through the transaction. In a single afternoon, we’d been served by three generations of Double J: the seasoned mechanic, the young grease-stained apprentice, and the cheerful matriarch at the counter.
It was impossible not to feel like we’d stumbled onto the set of a film. Except this wasn’t fiction. This was Double J Tire Center, a locally owned independent business that’s been serving Portland for half a century. It doesn’t play at being “retro” or “quirky.” It simply exists as it always has, stubbornly and authentically.
The service matched the atmosphere: direct, no frills, no upsell. Tires fixed quickly, cheaply, and without pretense. In a city where “weird” has been branded into oblivion, Double J isn’t quirky. It’s real. It’s a character in its own right, still showing up for the role it’s always played.
So if you need a patch or a replacement, skip the fluorescent sterility of Les Schwab. Head down MLK, step into Double J, and prepare yourself: you’ll leave with your car fixed, your wallet mostly intact, and the uncanny sense you just lived a scene out of Portland’s grimiest time capsule.
